Chapter Twenty-Three
ANA
“Okay, let’s get this furniture moved and get everyone packed up and ready to go. Everyone drink some water before we go too; we need to stay hydrated,” I said to the group.
I felt like I knew what I was doing, but deep down I really had no idea at all. The day had been long and hot, but luckily we all caught some sleep. We rotated with a few people staying awake at a time while the others slept.
Most of the women and teenagers were very well behaved. There were a couple of boys who got bored earlier in the day and were wresting each other in one of the rooms, but overall, it had been relatively uneventful.
As we all got ready to leave, I took a moment to myself to think about the best plan of attack to get us to the airport. If the rebels knew we were on the loose, they also knew that a group of younger children had made it the airport and hopefully the group of men as well. That meant that the rebels were going to try and head us off. I couldn’t describe my logic beyond feeling like there was something in my gut that told me we needed to move north and then cut over to the airport.
If we went north instead of directly west, it was going to be a much longer route, but once we got about five or six miles north, the rest of the area had very minimal rebel activity in it. It felt like a better option to me and I called Danita over to talk to her about it.
“I know the most direct route to the airport is if we go in a diagonal northwest route, but I think the rebels know we are out here and will be watching for us. I’d like to go straight north until we get into the safe area outside of the city, and then cut back west to the airport. What do you think?”
Danita paused for a moment as she contemplated what I was saying. It seemed odd that I was talking to a teenager about our escape plan, but she was the only one who spoke English and I needed to talk the plan out to see if it sounded reasonable.
“I’m going to get my mother. She will know.”
I waited as Danita explained the plan to her mother and watched her facial expressions to see if she agreed with me. It appeared that she did and she smiled at me, then waited for Danita to talk.
“She says yes, that’s a very intelligent plan. She will tell the others.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I thought it was a really good plan too and it was good to know that another adult in our group agreed.
It was barely dark outside when we finished removing the furniture from the front door area and lined up to get started on our journey. We didn’t have enough weapon power to keep us safe if we were ambushed, but we could ward off the occasional rebel if alone.
I was nervous, but surprisingly I wasn’t shaking at all. The ability to harness my scared feelings into something meaningful had helped me a lot since arriving in Damascus. Before, I was in my head all the time, constantly second-guessing everything. But in a war zone, there wasn’t time for second-guessing, I had to act fast and I loved it. The adrenaline rushed through my veins like it belonged there and I couldn’t wait to complete our mission and feel the rush of a job well done.
Well, except for what happened to Rake. My gut hurt just thinking about the bullet that he had taken for us. He had tried to get us out of the combat area. We were lucky he had been there and I would never forget that he sacrificed his life for ours.
When we got back to the states safely, I hoped I would get a chance to talk with his family and tell them how brave he was and how much he had done. I didn’t know if it would help at all, but hopefully it would give them a little peace, knowing that he had helped so many people in the last moments of his life.
“Okay, I want everyone to pair up. Stay with your partner and stay with the group. We are going to be moving fast; if you need us to slow down, let me know and we will. It’s more important that we stay all together than it is for us to get there quickly. We have all night; let’s be safe,” I said as I waited for Danita to translate and watched for everyone to pair up.
When the last bit of daylight had faded away, I opened the door and we headed out on our path to the airport. The moon was full that night, which gave us just enough light to illuminate our path to where we were going. Unfortunately, it would also give the rebels the light they needed to watch for us if they were anywhere near our area.
We had to move quickly and not stop, if at all possible, until we were out of the dangerous area where the majority of the rebels were. I knew we couldn’t just sprint out of the city; it was obvious that many of the women and teenagers weren’t in any condition to be running.
They had spent weeks hardly getting enough nourishment to live on; running wasn’t a task their body was willing to take on with that little amount of nutrients. We moved along at a fast walk, which did require some people to jog a little, but I continually looked back to keep an eye on the group and sent Danita to count our numbers periodically.
I watched the minute hand on my watch and stopped for a break every fifteen minutes to give everyone a chance to catch their breaths. It was certainly an exhausting proposition to bring such a large group of malnourished people along a hike the length of what we needed to do that evening. The human spirit is an amazing thing though; those women and children knew that their life was on the line and they continued to keep moving forward.
There wasn’t one complaint about wanting to stop or needing to go slower. It was impressive to see how truly dedicated they were to rescuing themselves. As we moved north, about an hour away from the house we had started at, I began getting a feeling like someone was behind us.
“Danita, do you see anything or anyone back there?” I asked as the feeling hit me.
“No; should we move faster?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t know if it would help or not. They could just be walking through the streets or something. Let’s just keep moving at our pace.”
I let Danita lead the group and I moved to the back where I walked backwards and kept my eyes peeled on the street behind us. When Danita brought the group to a stop, I saw two figures off in the distance behind us. They were probably six blocks away, but I could see them as they distinctly moved from one side of the street to the next.
I also saw, what I thought looked like an assault rifle hanging off from one of the men’s body. We couldn’t fight against an assault rifle, that was for sure. And it wasn’t likely that we could outrun two rebels.
The rebels were notorious for stealing food and water from anyone and everyone. It was highly likely that they had been well fed over the previous weeks and had plenty of water. As compared to my group of women who hadn’t eaten much of anything for weeks, well...
“Danita, I see two men about a half of kilometer behind us. I need you to keep the group moving and I’m going to distract them. No matter what, stick to our plan and keep going north. Get everyone out of here and to the airport.”
“We can help you. We can hide with you and distract them.”
“No, I’ve got this; now get going. I will catch up. If I catch them off guard, I can kill them both without them getting any shots off.”
“Okay, we will go,” Danita reluctantly agreed.
I knew she didn’t like the idea of leaving me behind, but I had to think about what I thought Nate would do, and he wouldn’t let the women and children be put into danger. It was much better if I stayed back and engaged the enemy and gave them a head start on getting out of the area. Even if I ended up getting killed, at least I would have wasted the rebels’ time and everyone would have been a few miles down the road by them.
I ducked into an alley and waited for the two figures to get closer. I wasn’t going to let them get a shot off at all. If I waited for just the right moment, the moonlight would hit their shadows and I could take a shot or two at them. With the ammunition I had on me, I certainly could take two men out, I was confident of it.
My heart pounded as they got closer, and I felt like it was actually going to explode. But the fear I felt there in that moment wasn’t anything like the fear I had felt at the hands of Stephano. In Damascus, I felt in control of myself and the fear I had. Adrenaline rushed through my body like a drug and I wasn’t ready to give it up.
The two men were only a block away when I took my first shot at them. They hadn’t been expecting it and scurried out of the street. Unfortunately, I didn’t hit either one of them. I hadn’t spent nearly enough time practicing shooting, and when I got out of Syria, it would be one of the first things I’d have Nate teach me.
I couldn’t wait to work with Nate more on my skills and get better and better. I knew he didn’t like the idea of me working with him, it probably scared him as much as it scared me that he did the job. But I finally understood the draw to his profession, and for a women like me, it was pretty amazing to feel powerful again.
“Rebels at three o’clock,” I heard a man say in English.
They were across the street from me and off to the side a bit, and I ducked back further into the alley so they didn’t have a direct sight on me. But the fact that they spoke English made me think it wasn’t, in fact, the rebels who were behind me at all.
“If you don’t identify yourself, I’m going to put this bullet right through your head,” I said calmly from where I was hiding.
“Ana?” I heard a voice say.
“Shit, who is it?”
“It’s Nate and Roane. Can we talk later? We need to keep moving.”
I couldn’t believe it was Nate. I had secretly been praying that he would find us, but I didn’t want to count on it. Oh, how happy I was that he was there to help us get safely back to the airport.
“Keep up, boys, I’m going to catch up with the ladies,” I said as Nate and Roane got close enough to me that I could see their faces.
There was no time for reunions; we needed to get out of there. The ladies had made really good time and were about a mile ahead of us when Nate, Roane, and I caught up with them.
“Look who I found,” I said as I arrived with the men.
Roane instantly hugged Danita and his wife, and Nate stood near me so we could talk without being overheard. It was so nice to have him there. I felt like I could finally relax and let him take the reins on the rescue mission.
As much as I wanted to get into the profession, I certainly wasn’t well trained and couldn’t pretend like I knew more than Nate did in the area of keeping people safe. Nate had spent years in his field and years before that with the military; it was no wonder that he wanted to start his own company. Nate really understood the business and was going to make a great boss.
“Why are you going this way?” Nate asked.
“Because the rebels will be expecting us to take the most direct route. I thought it would be best to get out of the city first and then cut over to the airport.”
I could tell by the expression on Nate’s face that he didn’t like my idea at all.
“Why not just make a straight run for it? You could have been at the airport by now.”
My stomach sank at the way he was talking to me. He hadn’t even thought about my plan at all. To him, the only way to go was the direct route and he just wanted us to run straight there. But he hadn’t seen how weak and tired the women and teenagers were. There was no way they could have made it on a seven-mile run straight to the airport.
Sure, the route I had them going was probably going to be closer to ten or twelve miles, but we would be out of the main fighting area and around friendlier places. In the area we were heading to, there were businesses still open and families still in their homes. To me, that meant that the area wasn’t as dangerous as the ones in the direct route to the airport.
“These women can’t run; they’re starving to death. They’ve been giving all their food to their children. This is the best route,” I said as I turned around to prepare the group to keep moving forward.
Nate reluctantly went with us our way, but I could tell he wasn’t happy about it at all. He moved to the back of the group of women and walked backwards to keep an eye on things. About fifteen minutes later when we stopped for a break again, he came back up front near me to talk again and try to convince me we were far enough north and needed to cut over to the airport.
“I think we are good now, let’s cut to the airport and get everyone out,” Nate said in an authoritative voice.
“No, I think we still need to go two miles north before we consider cutting across.”
Just then we heard a loud bang go off between us and the airport. A huge building was in flames and looked like it had been hit by a rocket or something. The building was only about a mile away from us, but it was in the path between the house we had taken shelter in and the airport.
“Nitro, you good?” I heard Baller ask over the radio that Nate had up by his ear.
He had the volume turned almost all the way down, but it was so close to his ear that he probably could hear it very well.
“We are good,” Nate reassured him.
“Sounds like the rebels are going house by house in the areas around the airport; I’d suggest you taking a few miles north to hike and then cutting over.”
I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear as I heard what Baller told Nate. It was exactly what I was doing and there was no denying it. Nate looked up at me with a half-smile as I relished my win for the moment.
“Sure thing, that’s the way we were headed,” Nate said. “Catch you at the airport in a few.”
“Copy that.”
As Nate hung up the phone, I took a step closer to him and let my hand rest on his stomach. The abs that he had under his shirt were inviting me to think terribly naughty thoughts. I couldn’t help but remember what his body looked like naked and I wanted to see him like that again very soon.
“Hmmm, it sounded like he said we should go north. That’s funny,” I teased.
“Oh, shut it. You’re definitely not a gracious winner.” Nate laughed.
“I know, I don’t get to win very much. I’ll have to practice the whole not-gloating thing.”
We both smiled at each other again and then took our positions as we got everyone rolling again. We kept our breaks short and Nate pushed everyone to go longer than fifteen minutes. He had us doing twenty minutes at a time, and then thirty. When we finally got far enough north, we turned toward the airport.
The neighborhood was much better than the areas we had been in and we ended up walking, just so we didn’t look like we had done something illegal. It was still a sight to see, the group of us on the streets in the dead of night, but walking actually worked out much better because we didn’t need to take as many breaks as we moved through the city.
The night dragged on and on as we moved closer and closer to our target. I was happy to have Nate along with us and felt safer than I had before since he was there. We only had a few more hours until we reached the airport, and I couldn’t wait to have that feeling of safety.